Test Platform for Silicon Carbide-based Medium Voltage Electrolysis Converter

Power-to-X (PtX) is deemed a promising energy carrier in the future energy sector. In such systems, the renewable energy is fed to the electrolyzer via a PtX rectification converter. State-of-the-art PtX converters are based on thyristor or diode-based rectifiers but the use of such components leads to poor AC power quality and high dc output ripple, which may pose challenges in regards to grid requirements and can reduce the electrolyzer efficiency respectively. As a promising alternative, this paper presents the concept and development of a Silicon Carbide (SiC) medium voltage (MV) electrolysis converter test platform, consisting of an active front-end (AFE) and an medium-to low-voltage solid-state transformer (SST) - both enabled by 10 kV SiC MOSFETs. In addition, the experimental setup further includes a 50 kW alkaline electrolyzer, originally interfaced by a thyristor-based rectifier, which enables a direct comparison study of the state-of-the-art and the SiC-based MV converter.